20110802

stepping back

A while ago, N and I tried limited our recreational internet time. We set the limit at an hour a day and I tried a bunch of different timers like iChrono, StayFocused, and Thyme. It worked for a while but we eventually lapsed back into our old habits.

I get distracted easily, which is no news, but recently I've been less satisfied with my online distractions which mostly consist of news, comics, blogs. I feel like there have been some excellent things that I'm glad I've read, but that I'm starting to be apathetic about most content. Part of me just wants to buckle down and write a smarter RSS aggregator, but part of me wants to just take a break.

I'm reminded of my new year's themes, particularly the first one: physical over virtual, though others apply as well. Given that, I think I'm going to take a week off from reading online content that's not related to either 1) work/research/school or 2) Russian History. I want to break the habit of "I'm bored. I'll check Google Reader."

I have a quilt to complete, a pile of papers (and then some) left over from the move that need to be sorted through, plenty of academic work to do, a string of guests arriving over the next month, several half-finished books, and a million other odds and ends to manage.

Anyway, I'm reinstating the StayFocused extension for Chrome with a time limit of ten minutes a day; the goal is to keep it enabled for a full week. We'll see how long it takes me to get twitchy from withdrawal.